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Tahoe Adventure Film Festival celebrates the mountain life

Adam Jensen
ajensen@tahoedailytribune.com

If you go

What: Tahoe Adventure Film Festival

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 14

Where: MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa

Tickets: $25 plus fees

Info: http://www.laketahoefilmfestival.com

Call it a celebration of stoke.

More than a decade in, the Tahoe Adventure Film Festival is less about filmmaking itself and more about reveling in Lake Tahoe’s mountain lifestyle. The message of this year’s festival, which takes place Saturday at MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa, is just celebrating every day in a such an amazing place, said organizer and host Todd Offenbacher.

This year’s festival includes 10 films, “everything from skiing and climbing and biking to skateboarding,” Offenbacher said. One film includes a look inside the mind of a BASE jumper, another highlights a disabled surfer. The entries are just a couple examples of the variety offered by the fast-paced festival.



The Tahoe Adventure Film Festival doesn’t show full films. Instead, filmmakers provide the festival with segments or specially edited 10-12 minute clips designed to get viewers fired up about the lifestyles they love, Offenbacher said. The festival takes submissions, but also searches for films independently to get the right mix of action.

When asked what the common thread is between the sports highlighted by the festival, Offenbacher said it comes down to the risks they present and how that risk develops deeper relationships.



“I think the sports that a lot of us do — the climbing, the backcountry skiing, these type of things — there’s a lot more risk and the consequences are often a lot greater in these types of sports,” Offenbacher said. “So, as people that share these sports together, we’re not only counting on each other for success, we’re counting on each other for safety. And at times were also counting on each other for our lives, you know? That’s the reality of it. So, I think what comes from it is a bond and a trust and a relationship that reaches a lot deeper than other communities.”

The festival will include a film segment on polar explorer and Squaw Valley resident Doug Stoup, who will be the recipient of the festival’s Golden Camalot award, which is given “to leaders in action and adventure sports for excellence, achievement and leadership” each year.

Stoup has appeared in several Warren Miller films, is the first person to “ice bike” long distance in Antarctica, is the first American man to ski to the South Pole and the first to notch a descent of Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica (at 16,050 feet).

Past winners of the award have included skier Glen Plake, snowboarder Jermey Jones and climber Alex Honnold. Offenbacher said the festival is hoping to coordinate a live feed with Stoup from the Antarctic during the festival, which would be another first for the event that celebrates its 11th year in 2013.

The night includes special guest speakers, action photo displays, break dancers and DJs. Attendees will also have the chance to win a heli-ski trip through Points North Heli-Adventures, Offenbacher said.


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